You say customer, I say . . .

By Alyson Stanfield on 05.06.07

At yesterday’s Art Marketing Action workshop in Evergreen, this question came up: “What do you call the people who buy art from you? Buyers? Customers?”

I suggest calling them patrons or collectors. The word “patron” has such a strong connection to art history. Patronage in the Early Renaissance and beyond led to incredible advances in art and the enhancement of public spaces.

I use the word “collectors” in my book, Cultivating Collectors, because that’s the intent of that publication: to encourage your buyers to collect your work again and again.

I am always way too caught up in a workshop to take pictures, so they usually happen after a lot of the group has already gone home. Here are a few people I was able to keep hostage for a bit longer at day’s end. (With just enough time to spare to get home for the start of the Kentucky Derby and a mint julep.)

Longtime Art Marketing Action newsletter subscriber and client, Denise Bellon West, made it to the workshop.

1 comment to You say customer, I say . . .

In my field of fine art portraiture I call the people who buy, or more exactly, commission a portrait from me, “clients”. I guess it has to do with the collaborative nature of working out the commission details with them and meeting their expectations. Patrice Erickson Fine Art Portraits and Landscapes http://blog.patriceerickson.comhttp://www.patriceerickson.com